


Cover

by gala_apples



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Grand Theft Auto Setting, Closeted Character, Coming Out, F/F, Multi, Trans Female Character, Triadverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-15
Updated: 2016-04-14
Packaged: 2018-05-26 23:46:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6260707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gala_apples/pseuds/gala_apples
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack knows who she is. Single. White. Female. Self awareness is enough, until it's not. Until she has to propel herself outwards and upwards, and make sure everyone notices.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Cover your hurt with hope

**Author's Note:**

> Written for day three of triadverse week, prompt marginalised people. If you'd like more info on the verse, have a [FAQ.](http://triadverse.tumblr.com/post/86154454124/triad-verse-faq)

It becomes too much on a Friday night. She’s spent years not doing anything about who she really is, and in the middle of March on a Friday night, it’s enough.

Part of her problem is that she didn’t figure it out early enough. It’s an asshole thing to say, she knows. The concept that you have to transition at puberty is toxic to the trans community, completely unfair. That doesn’t stop her from wishing she had. Or at the very least, done it before she met Geoff. Because with Geoff came the rest of the crew. With Geoff came role expectations from five people who she loves, who she’d get shot for, who she’d get tortured for, people who she actually cares enough about to follow through on said role expectations. It’s not even that they’re transphobic. They’re not. Or at least Jack highly doubts it. It’s really just that for them she’s Mr Jack Patillo, ex-military pilot, the man with a bucket list of stealing at least one of every plane in the United States. The man with the plan to get everyone out alive. Coming out table flips everything they think they know about her, which changes the way they’ll subconsciously rely on her during a heist, which could have massive repercussions.

It matters, and it matters, and it matters, until one day she can’t fucking stand it any more. Not that she comes out. That’s still much further away on her list of steps. No, instead Jack bails on the customary drugs and Netflix FAHC Friday evening, goes home to her apartment block, and enters the apartment the crew don’t know she has. Or rather, the secondary space everyone knows she has, just like she knows everyone else has their own, but even in a crew as tight knit as theirs, everyone needs their own private safe house. She doesn’t know what Michael or Jeremy considers crucial to making it through a personal apocalypse. Her own closets are full of skirts and leggings, her bathroom counter bins of make up, her tablet with things bookmarked that no one would understand. And, okay, she’s got guns in every room, because obviously. 

Temporarily ignoring the texts trying to lure her back to her friends, she shaves, then follows the best online tutorial she’s found for tucking without tape. Together, with a pair of neon capri leggings and seafoam denim shorts on top, Jack can objectively say she passes from the waist down. The top half is a little harder, but eventually she finds a high cut sweetheart neckline shirt that makes it look like she’s got more than she does. Contouring can only get her so far when she’s not on HRT, but thanks to some brave Youtubers she can do her best. 

By the time Jack’s ready, she’s racked up a few dozen texts. For a bunch of mass murderers, her friends sure are clingy. Jack refuses to be drawn in by answering each of them individually, so she sends a group text that she’ll be busy until tomorrow morning. Then she grabs her keys and takes the elevator to the vast car park. To quote from Rent, time to find a bar so dark she forgets who she is.

Dancing to the pounding bass is a well needed outlet. By the time Daft Punk comes on Jack almost wants to cry for how no holds barred happy she is. A few people have even hit on her, and she’s like ninety percent sure they’re not creepy trans-fetishists, just men and women who genuinely find her cute. It’s fucking manna from heaven, a gift you didn’t know you’d get, like when you bip a cop in the middle of a fire fight, brutal and hands on because you’ve run out of bullets, and they drop a nearly full gun.

She says no to all of them, though. It’s simple to reject these fives and sevens when there’s a gorgeous black woman rocking it near the cages, a ten at the lowest. Jack would easily declare her to break the scale. She’s drenched in purple, cosmos leggings and a cleavage showing leather top and spike heels, and Jack wants to touch every inch of her. Realistically Jack might not work up the courage to approach -tonight has already been full of risks- but neither is she going to make small talk with someone who doesn’t impress her.

Jack spends the night alternating between letting the techno beats take her, and scanning the club for Purple Curves. It’s the woman’s right to take home someone who’ll worship her, Jack knows that, but she can’t help but feel a little triumphant each time she spots her, still dancing. There’s still a chance Jack could talk to her, maybe even get a kiss. If only she could figure out what she’s going to say. Each perfect speech she rejects as utter crap ten minutes later, and fucking forget about standard pick up lines.

Finally, at three am she decides to just say whatever comes into her head. Clubs don’t always close in Los Santos, zoning laws being yet another batch of rules the predominantly criminal citizens are happy to break. However, the bar being physically open until six am doesn’t mean Purple Curves will stay that long. Not to mention at some point one of the guys is going to text to see if she wants to meet up for breakfast. Probably Michael, he’s got this thing about fresh hot kolache. 

The woman and she are about the same height, thanks to her high heels. Jack only has to lean in to get her attention. By some stroke of luck, the woman is willing to draw her soft curls back so Jack can talk in her ear and be heard over the music. That’s when it goes wrong. She’s not drunk, has only had two drinks in nearly four hours of dancing and people watching, but you’d never know by what’s spilling out her mouth. It’s verbal vomit, nothing more; just her feelings and thoughts viscous and bright all over Purple Curves. Jack thinks she’s hot. Jack loves her shoes, she’s thought so many times about wearing high heels but isn’t sure her feet could take it when she’s worn only sneakers for two and a half decades. Jack thinks she looks great dancing, like she lives in the music. Does she have any preconceived notions about transwomen, and can she tell. Would she have known if Jack hadn’t just outed herself. Holy mother of God, where the _fuck_ has her inner censor gone? It’s fucking ridiculous, and embarrassing, and when her shrieking brain finally manages to cork her stupid mouth, she knows she’s blushing. Hopefully the makeup is covering that, though.

It’s possible Purple Curves isn’t completely appalled by the lack of censor, because she doesn’t cringe away and pretend that Jack never approached. The blithering idiot routine obviously isn’t a turn on, Jack doesn’t get kissed in the middle of the dance floor either. Instead thin fingers curl around her wrist, and Jack follows the gentle lead towards the powder room. Any other city and it’d be a gentle name for a bathroom. In Los Santos it’s a room filled with chaise lounges, mirrors and straws, and dyads and triads doing whatever it is that the drugs make them feel like doing.

“I’m Mica. And you go by?”

“Jack.” Another instance of her being a poor role model for the trans community; she has no interest in dropping it as a dead name and choosing something feminine. Maybe it’s because of all the crazy adrenaline pumping times she’s heard it bellowed. She just can’t imagine someone screaming a different name to beg for a pick up as she flies over their crime in the making. Not because the crew would struggle with it. Even in a sunshine and roses world where she was out and presenting the way she wanted and everyone reacted like nothing catastrophic had happened Jack still would want to be Jack. Jack’s her identity, audibly male or not.

“So that was kind of a huge info dump for a total stranger, but you know what? I’m going to go with it. Starting with start with low heels and work up to stilettos you can jab into someone’s brain if you have to, working through how can you _not_ dance to this kind of music, and ending on I could probably tell if I was really looking, but you’d have to be a huge asshole to want to deconstruct the way someone presents themselves. Plus you’re cute at exactly this stage of gender performance, so if this is how you like to feel, fuckin’ go for it.”

“How cute?” It’s a question that depends hugely on tone. Flat voice and she sounds like she doesn’t believe Mica. Too peppy and she sounds like she’s fishing for compliments. Emphasis placed perfectly though, and Jack could be leading this conversation the way she wants: towards a nice session of making out.

“Cute enough to stay here for a while before I go home.”

Fuck yes! God bless her ability to enunciate properly. It’s come in handy numerous times before, in the military and during heists and during that brief stint as a radio jockey, but this is by far the best use of her voice. Or at least that’s how it feels right now.

Mica smiles at her, teeth pearls of white against luridly magenta lips, lipstick that matches her fingernails and a focal piece necklace that draws attention to her ample breasts. “You wanna lay down now, or do you want some blow first?”

“No, thanks.”

“Something else?”

For a while now Jack’s had a firm policy of only doing drugs with the crew. Not only can she trust the vintages that Geoff gets his hands on more than using some random’s supply, it’s both way more fun and way safer to lose your mind with people who you deeply know and can predict what they’ll do before they do it. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not straight edge. Not in Los Santos. But I’m good without.”

“Alrighty then. Lay down. I’m an on top kind of girl. Unless you’re reeeeally against it, then we can negotiate.”

Jack is one hundred percent fine with any position Mica might want, up to and including weird impossible Kama Sutra shit. She reclines on the white leather with barely a thought towards the rest of the people in the room, and whether they may or may not be watching. If that triad in the corner can be happily double penetrating their lone woman, she can get a few kisses without feeling any shame.

It’s so much better an experience than she thought it would be. On the surface of it, Mica is an expert kisser. Wet but not disgustingly so, just enough biting to keep things exciting. She uses her hands in all the places Jack would have asked her too, if her mouth wasn’t busy. Fingernails scratching across her collarbones feel as good as the way Mica squeezes her ass feels as good as the way she pins her wrists once or twice. Jack can feel her dick rising, but Mica does her the courtesy of ignoring it. They don’t go much further than Jack sliding her hand up the back of Mica’s shirt, but Jack’s delighted to get that far. 

“Come back here on Tuesday, we can do this again,” Mica suggests when they finally break apart, at least forty five minutes after they started.

“Why then?” Jack is momentarily proud of not asking why wait so long, until she realises that her real question is very strongly inferred.

“You know. Job. Boyfriend. Really good prime time tv. Speedrunner I subscribe to uploads on Mondays.”

Jack skips right over the odd point of similarity, that they both enjoy watching others play video games. Normally it’d be something she could talk about for at least an hour, but there’s something far more important to bring up. “Boyfriend? You’re in a dyad?”

“Primer relationship, actually,” Mica corrects.

“Well, what the hell?” It’s 2016, you can’t be a bigot towards the minority of people who think they’re better off in a pair, not a normal trio. Jack’s got her own queer issues, she’d never shit on someone else’s. But there’s a big difference between meeting someone dyadistic -even assisting in them cheating on their sole partner- and hooking up with only one half of a primer couple. It’s just not done.

“My partner and I have very different ideas about what a perfect third would be like. We both know the other’s tastes well. One day we’ll find someone who magically fits both sets of requirements and that’s how we’ll know who to marry. Until that day, we’re both satisfied with having individual encounters.” 

Jack accepts that fairly readily. Geoff, Griffon, and Amanda is the crew’s only married triad. Michael and Gavin both have only a single girlfriend, and Ryan and Jeremy are completely single. He’s sure Michael and Gavin have different ideas than Lindsay and Meg for what constitutes the ideal third. It’s nothing against her that Mica’s boyfriend won’t want her. It might not even be the trans thing.

“So, Tuesday. Is it a date?”

Jack nods her head. “I can do Tuesday.”

“Great! Goodnight!” Mica leans in for another kiss, this one incredibly chaste, and then leaves the powder room. Her walking gait is as sexy as her dancing. Jack hates to be a cliche, but that line about hating to see someone go, but loving to see them leave? Accurate.

There’s no reason to stay at the club any longer. It’s not like her night is going to get any better. She follows in Mica’s wake past the red velvet ropes, slight delay only so that they don’t run into each other again outside when hailing a cab. Nothing’s more awkward than running into the person you’ve just said lengthy goodbyes to.

When the cabbie asks for her destination Jack hesitates before telling him the apartment block. God she wishes she had someone she could sit down with and talk to about how awesome this feels. There’s no question that the boys are still awake. Night owls the lot of them. Probably a little drunk, or high, or at least coming down, but they’d be happy with her dropping by, and completely willing to listen. Without outing herself though, it’d just be a conversation about how she got to second base. She can only imagine all the accusations of virginity, as who else would be excited by making out and light petting? Jack will just have to fall back on posting about it on her favourite forum. Her world-wide trans friends will be excited for her, and her first female presentation hook up. They’ll understand the magnitude of it.


	2. Cover My Body With Yours

For the next two months Jack keeps up her occasional forays into the world. Mica’s to blame, if blame’s the right word for it. In Mica’s mind, there’s absolutely no reason Jack shouldn’t go out on the town with her. The more time Jack spends with Mica, the more she agrees. There are some ugly stats, it’s true, but one of the benefits of living in Los Santos is the sheer amount of unsolved crime. If some hate mongerer comes at her, she’ll just shoot him. Shatter his skull into a thousand smithereens. The corrupt cops will look at the corpse for a day or two, then move on. If Jack gets killed it will be because Fake AH pissed off the wrong people, not because she’s a statistic of violence towards transpeople.

It’s good to go out with Mica. There are no expectations. Mica’s never known her as a man, so Jack doesn’t have to pretend to be one. She also doesn’t have to pretend to be overly feminine. Jack doesn’t like dresses, and Mica doesn’t suggest she wear them. Instead she gives suggestions for how to dress up outfits that include the shorts Jack endlessly wears. They go jewelry shopping, they mess around with outlandish makeup styles, they watch online tutorials about how to jazz up basic Target canvas flats, because as it turns out, heels are horrible.

And, of course, they bang. Usually at Jack’s second apartment. Sometimes at Mica’s, which is painted in bursts of colour and has giant plushies for throw pillows. Sometimes at a nightclub because public indecency laws are for people who don’t shoot cops and steal cars. Wherever they go, it’s great. Mica’s techniques are as varied and enjoyable as Ben & Jerry’s flavours are. That said, fucking might not be the best part, on her end of it. Jack likes female camaraderie, and Meg and Griffon and Lindsay aren’t options for that right now. She’s fine if fucking _is_ the best part of it for Mica. After all, Mica’s not really looking for love. Companionship, maybe. Her boyfriend -still nameless after nine weeks, Mica hasn’t slipped once- is often busy, so friends who want to bang are basically Mica’s specs. Any feelings Jack might be developing are to be compartmentalised. Jack’s a fuckin’ pro at that.

Luckily there are other things to do, things that keep her mind off of the way Mica laughs with her whole body at Markiplier’s self soothing commentary as he plays a horror game. Usually Fake AH does small, classic heists, robbing banks and the like. Sometimes though, someone gets an _idea_. It’s not always Geoff, though the man does need to be consulted before the crew starts officially developing it. Jeremy had this great idea based on gymnastic terms Jack had never even heard of before. Gavin’s firetruck heist will live in infamy. And while Geoff generally tries to keep the significant others out of things, Michael and Lindsay’s joint gold-bar-portapotty heist easily makes their top ten for sheer entertainment, despite not making much profit.

“Some time between now and eleven am tomorrow can you pick up the RV keys from Ryan’s place?”

“Is it because I’m the only one with a Commercial Class B licence?” Jack asks with a laugh. As if they’d let something as pathetically trivial as who’s actually allowed to drive it be a base of assigned tasks.

“Yes, that’s exactly it. Nothing to do with how I have to monitor the frogs all night, make sure they don’t get out,” Geoff bitches.

“Hey, don’t get pissy at me. It wasn’t my idea!” This is another product of Gavin’s brain and while they’ve all -Jack in particular- been over the plan for danger points and feel confident in pulling it off, there’s no question that it’s weird. 

Jack hangs out for a while more, then heads out. She has no specific plan, but she also has no interest in drinking and frogsitting with Geoff. There’s about a sixty percent chance he’ll drunk dial his wives and start having phone sex with whomever is free. It’s not that Jack doesn’t understand the gold leafed excess of it all. If she didn’t get that craving for extravagance and extremity herself she wouldn’t have come to Los Santos. She just doesn’t want to get hot and bothered on a night that Mica is categorically unavailable. Mondays are boyfriend nights. Have been nine weeks straight. Will be until Mica gets bored with her current selections of slutty friends and dumps them all for new ones and Jack doesn’t get to see her any day of the week.

On the way home she gets held up by a car chase. She’s halfway down the block when a Furore GT jumps the curb with a bad-for-the-shocks down bounce, then blazes the wrong way up the street. Jack throws it into reverse and blares her horn so the fucker behind her moves too. She gets the most out of the way she can, which isn’t a hell of a lot on a three lane street separated from the other direction by a median. Through some combination of luck and skill Jack avoids getting smashed into, the Furore and cop both choosing to mangle the lanes closer to the sidewalk. A dozen cars get fucked, and that’s before all the hyper aggressive men start pulling guns. Her choices are sit here for ages, watching how it plays out and hoping a stray bullet doesn’t go her way, with the cherry on top of probably having to make a statement that the cops will alter as they best see fit. Alternatively, she could back up until she can make a turn, and get the fuck out of this mess.

The choice is obvious. Jack keeps reversing, and the drivers behind her cede to her superior knowledge. That or they’ve been living in Los Santos a while too, and know that sometimes a battle won is a battle avoided. It sucks though. Thanks to the fucked up layout of this city, and the constant construction from explosions, her routes home are either this ten minute drive, or a half an hour detour. In the time it takes her to get home following this forced route, she could be in and out of Ryan’s, with a gift of sympathy beer to soften her annoyance.

Jack doesn’t break in. She could, it’s basic level criminal knowledge, but she doesn’t. She doesn’t need to. Everyone has keys to everyone’s main apartment. Or, more specifically, all six of their main apartments have the same lock. On their unfortunate but likely eventual field death or arrest, what’s on them is getting processed. A cop wanting to get his name on a book deal would definitely track down each location of a ring of six keys, presuming each thing opened would be more detail into the crime life of that FAHC member. Details pad chapters. Being found with only one key means no need to look beyond one apartment searched.

The open front door lets out of blast of porno soundtrack. Jack enters rather than give Ryan his alone time because she’s curious as to what genre gets him off. Besides, it’s comedy gold.

Except he’s not watching anything. Ryan is very much having the sex, not viewing it. The viewer in this situation would be her. But it’s difficult to look away. Ryan’s sitting in a luxury office chair, one of those two thousand dollar jobs that Geoff has at the work apartment. Sitting on him is a black woman wearing only high stockings and a garter, no panties. Sitting might be the wrong word. She’s very definitely riding his cock. Ryan’s supporting her with gloved hands, fingers splayed across her ass cheeks. Jack wonders what that feels like, leather hands on bare skin. Not to mention on lips. Ryan’s wearing his heist mask, the black leather skull one, and the woman is pressing her lips against the part sculpted to look like teeth. It’s the first time Jack’s ever thought of the accessory like a fetish mask, but the comparison has its points.

Jack watches longer than is strictly kosher. She doesn’t shake out of it until the woman groans ‘oh, Ryan, fuck’ and she realises she knows that voice. She knows this woman.

“Ryan? You know Mica?” Jack’s never even considered asking for exclusivity. It doesn’t fit Mica’s sleep with people my boyfriend wouldn’t date methodology and there’s no point in asking to change her style when it can’t go anywhere. She just didn’t think that Ryan was another of Mica’s slutty partners on the side.

“Jack? Hi,” Mica says, first twisting to the side to see her, then sliding out of Ryan’s grip. She stands up, not trying for one moment to cover herself. And why would she, when she’s so gorgeous and in the company of friends?

Ryan stands too. Unlike Mica though, it’s the work of seconds to tuck his cock back in his pants and be fully dressed. “How do you know Mica?”

Jack doesn’t know how to make this less awkward. She shrugs. “Just one of those fuck buddies not fit for audition for the primer boyfriend. You know how it is.”

“Nope,” Mica answers at the same time that Ryan’s saying “No I don’t. Seeing as I’m the primer boyfriend.”

That... that had not even occurred to Jack. “What the fuck kind of small ass world is this?”

“I’m more interested in other questions.” Ryan takes the skull mask off and becomes a different person. Jack’s seen the transformation a hundred times, but it’s never stopped being fascinating. She watches, mute, as Ryan starts trying to pin down Mica. “The whole reason we declared an open search is because you know I want to date a man in the life, and you’re more interested in women, any level of the criminal spectrum. Even if you didn’t know he was _my_ Fake AH Jack, you still must have seen the guns and war wounds and hypervigilance. Did you really think I wouldn’t like him?”

Mica’s stuck in a hard place. Jack hasn’t talked to her specifically about being closeted to friends and coworkers but she’s brought up questions of passing more than once. Enough to piss off the every expression is valid, gender is a construct crowd. Definitely enough to clue Mica in that she doesn’t have any experience being out. Mica is a good enough person to not out her. However that leaves her not answering her long term lover’s question, and a personal enough one that Ryan might take offence. Mica could be jeopardising her relationship for Jack.

“Look. You can’t tell the guys. Okay?” Jack knows the seeking of a promise is useless. If Ryan spirals down into horror and disgust a promise won’t prevent him telling everyone in some big phobic ‘warning’. She can’t help but ask anyway.

If Jack was having this conversation with other members of the crew, like Geoff or Gavin she’d be treated to a list of hypothetical things Jack might be about to tell him. Because it’s Ryan, ‘okay?’ is all he has to say on the subject.

“He won’t,” Mica says firmly. Jack knows her love belongs with Ryan, not to one of her hook ups, but she appreciates Mica sounding on her side on the issue, like she’d kick Ryan out of the apartment for a few nights for the wrong reaction.

“What she’s not telling you is the night we hooked up I was presenting as a woman.”

It’s another instance of everyone in the crew having a comment in this moment except Ryan. He stays quiet, and Jack can’t tell what he thinks. It’s silent enough that Mica steps in.

“You might think Jack is the man you know, but she’s really the woman you know.”

“The woman you like,” Ryan states.

Jack would prefer to get this cleared up before it becomes a problem for the couple. “I mean, I like her too. But it’s not like I’m moving in on your territory. Hard to do that when you just have five or ten people just pitching a tent on the fringes.”

“Wait. Are you under the impression that I’m with like five or ten people?”

“Uh...Yes?” 

“Uh, _no_ ,” Mica replies firmly.

“You fucking said you slept with people your boyfriend wouldn’t like. Why the fuck am I the only one?” Jack isn’t sure why she’s frustrated, but she is. She thought she knew what she was getting into with Mica, but the situation has been different all along.

“Yes, that is what I said. And I do. And you know what? Sometimes it is more than one person at the same time. But right now, Ryan’s right. It’s just you because I like you more than I like other people I’ve recently met, and why would I want to fuck someone that I wanna shrug at when I could fuck you and then hang out for three hours watching Studio Ghibli?”

Jack doesn’t know how to respond to that. Of course she thinks that Mica has the right to only fuck around with people she genuinely likes. Some people are into hate sex, or quickies, but she’s known for a while now that that’s not Mica. She just didn’t expect to be the only one that Mica likes. She wishes Mica had said something.

“More importantly, I’m pretty sure Ryan likes you too.”

“Mica!”

The woman barrels on, in spite of harsh expressions from both directions. “We’ve talked about this before. A lot. Ryan gets off on loyalty, and the violence that it allows. He would date anyone in the crew. That’s why he wants someone who’s in the life. He doesn’t want to have to explain it, he wants them to already get it. He wants someone he could draw into his crew. And hey, there you are already, in Fake AH long enough that it’s more important to you than transitioning. So from Ryan’s perspective, he’s all about this. So what do you say, Jack? Wanna come over here and join us?”

She wants to be mad. Hell, she _is_ mad. But Mica’s a great fuck. Jack hasn’t actually complimented her on it in their two months together. It sort of goes without saying for a club kid, and Jack doesn't want to be the hundredth gormaund who tells the chef they make good food so she hasn't bothered. Unsaid or not though, sex with Mica has been fantastic and Jack can't see this time being any different. Better even, since it’s with the person she truly loves. And Ryan- Well, sometimes it's fun to fool around with your best friends. It's not like it'll be the first or last time Jack’s done that. She doesn’t have the confidence that Mica does that Ryan has romantic interest in her, but he’s not saying no to this proposition. So Jack shoves the anger to the side and presses herself against their sides. She’ll unpack where she stands and how she feels later. For now she wants to touch Ryan’s leather and Mica’s lace.


	3. Throw Off The Covers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ableist slur in this chapter.

Jack’s the second last to arrive. The majority of the others have taken Seasharks to the private dock nearest the alpha rendezvous point, while she took a Turismo. Needless to say, an one man craft across the wide bay is faster than Los Santos traffic. To be fair to the crew though though, it’s not like she got saddled with the drive option. There’s a red watercraft with her name on it still tied up and rocking with the waves. She just didn’t take it. Jet ski wake spray is wicked. Gavin is standing here sopping and Michael wore a toque during the job specifically to protect his hair on the getaway. The way her body is right now, Jack can’t afford clothes hosed down to cling to her frame. Lack of speed was the lesser of two evils.

Apart from a few ‘hey’s they wait on the stretch of gravelly beach without acknowledging each other. The heist wasn’t a complete failure. No one’s dead. No one got arrested. They even got away with most of the loot they intended to. But it did not go remotely smoothly. It did not go well. No one here wants to start the negative debrief, least of all Jack. There’s especially no sense in going over it twice, and Geoff’s not here yet. So for now they just act like five separate entities, people who have just happened to stumble upon this same section of gritty, inhabitable beach. 

It can only last so long though. The loud whine of another Seashark breaks the tense silence before it turns into a furious vacuum noise as Geoff beaches the watercraft. Vehicles like that tend to not like sand and rocks hovered into their cooling system. 

The moment Geoff’s standing on his own feet he starts attacking. Never let it be said Geoff Ramsey beats around the bush. “What the fuck, Jack?”

“What,” she snaps. If she can appear as angry as Geoff actually is, this might blow up before any real damage is done.

“Don’t kick me in the dick and say you didn’t move.”

“Uh, what?” Jack knows what he means, but riding him on his strange turns of phrase is good for her right now. It’s just another level of annoyance and distraction.

Unless Geoff bypasses the dig entirely, and focuses on the facts. She should know better than to think he can’t tamp down. She’s worked beside him for years, after all. “That was the least efficient I’ve ever seen you be. You literally brought a baseball bat to a gun fight.”

“I took a few people down.” At the very least Jack has some concussions to tuck under her belt. More likely she’s got some fractured skulls, and blunt force trauma on coroner's reports.

“Oh yeah?” Geoff challenges. “How many did Gavin get? How many did Michael get?” 

Both men look extremely uncomfortable to be used as examples. Jack doesn’t give a shit about their _feelings_. Not when she’s in the hot seat for something that sure as fuck could have been avoided. 

“I couldn’t afford bullets.”

“Excuse me? What is _this_ fresh hot bullshit?” Geoff cries out.

“No, fuck you. You picked a bad week for a heist, and I tried to tell you that.” So maybe Jack didn’t fight overly hard. So fucking sue her for not wanting to impede her last heist before everything changes. Possibly her last heist period, even, if they’re shitter than she thought. She might not have been loud about it, but she still fucking warned them, and Geoff still fucking ignored it.

“I thought you meant you had a cold, not that you gambled away all your resources.”

Jeremy interjects himself into their argument. “Wait. I thought there was a crew rule of always leave at least ten percent of your cut of the haul in savings.”

“Oh go fuck yourself. Some of us have more important shit to buy than a goddamn cowboy hat.” The problem with storming off is there’s a sixty percent chance the car won’t move. It’s a Turismo after all, not a Bifta. It’s not meant to crawl out of ruts on command. Being stuck is fine if they’re all leaving together. Between the six of them, at least one car will be available. Ditching them is a different story.

“So you bought something? You didn’t gamble it?”

“I’m not that much of a jackass.”

“So what was it? You must have spent a lot to be down to brass tacks but I haven’t seen a yacht or a car.” Gavin looks at her, like he expects her to suddenly be wearing solid gold sunglasses. The likes of which he actually wears occasionally, the fuckin’ tool.

“Guys, fuck off. If Jack doesn’t want to share he doesn’t have to.” It makes sense that Ryan’s taking a stand. It does privately, in that she and Ryan and Mica have been a triad for months, and he cares about her need for secrecy. It also does publicly. Of all of the crew, Ryan is by far the most likely to avoid interfering with others. Of course he’d tell the rest of them to not meddle.

“You know what? Fuck it!” Jack shifts her weight on the gravel, a nervous gesture that makes up for training herself out of crossing her arms. That’s a bad move when HRT has grown you a pair of breasts that you cannot fathom binding, but don’t want others to notice. “Surgery. I bought surgery. It costs a lot in bribes when it’s specialised and you need specific American doctors, not a hatchet job, and you can’t give them a fucking ID because there’s no paper trail.”

“What are you talking about? We have tons of fakes.” Michael questions in his normal, ‘why do I have to ask this, why are people so stupid’ tone. Usually it’s directed towards Gavin, or Lindsay, or at hostages. It’s generally funny under those circumstances. Now it just pisses Jack off.

“Not what I need.”

“We bought a range,” Michael shoots back.

“Oh, do you have a name with twelve months of retrievable therapy notes saying they have gender dysphoria, and proof of a Real Life Experience?” 

Bickering with Michael isn’t how she imagined revealing her secret. Not once. But Jack can’t bring herself to regret it. She’s been on HRT for months now, and Ryan’s been helping her cover. If it’s not pretending some asshole attempted to mug her with a screwdriver before Ryan shot him so she could wear a bandage over her tracheal shave mark, it’s Ryan joining in with Michael mocking Gavin about his hideous beard so Jack can claim daily shaving for a better look instead of admitting to electrolysis, or it’s Ryan letting her know that this particular baggy Hawaiian shirt isn’t concealing enough. It’s getting exhausting. It’s so much harder to be in transition but have to hide it than it was being consistently dysphoric. Maybe that’s a shitty thing to say, but it feels true.

Anyway, she has to come out sooner, rather than later. Her reconstruction surgery is booked. She’ll be in the hospital for a week, and there’s no way that the guys won’t wonder where she is, not when at least one of them sees someone every day. She’ll have to ask Geoff for time off. Even if Jack came up with a good excuse, they’re hardly going to not notice when she gets back. She is going to be spectacularly noticeable when she gets back, as noticeable as she ever dreamed she might be. 

“So... what are you saying?” Gavin asks. His bag of stolen jewellry clanks against itself as Michael reaches to the side and punches him in the ribs.

“What do you think they’re saying, dipshit? They’re not a man.” 

Jack wants to hug Michael. She’s been hoping, and she knows Ryan’s been plotting behind her back with Mica about how to address worst case scenarios, but you never know how someone will react until you actually come out. Now she knows at least two of the crew have her back. “Thanks for the neutral pronouns.”

“Yeah well, everyone should be fuckin’ doin’ it. That’s introduction shit. ‘Hey, Fuckface, my name is Buttmunch, what pronouns?’”

“It’s nice, but it’s wrong. She’s a her. Say her or I’ll shoot you.” Jack has to smile, despite the whole situation. Good ole Ryan, support through bloodshed. 

“How the fuck do you know?”

“Because that’s what me and my girlfriend have been calling her for months.”

All heads turn to gape at Ryan. Even Jack’s not immune. Neither she nor Mica believed Ryan would ever reveal his relationship. They’ve both accepted his need for secrecy, knowing the kind of man he is.

“What the fuck is going on?” Geoff bleats stressfully, voice animalistic.

Jeremy’s digging a bottle of expensive whiskey out of his backpack of stolen goods and shoving it into Geoff’s hand a moment later. “Have a drink. Don’t be an asshole.” 

“Thanks Lil J,” Geoff mutters. He unscrews the cap and starts to go to town.

“So when the fuck did this all happen?”

“You better be talking about Geoff’s alcoholism, because Ryan’s gonna shank you otherwise,” Michael warns Gavin.

“I don’t care that Ryan’s protecting his girlfriend, not his boyfriend. Whatever you wanna have in your pants, have it. I care that Ryan has a girlfriend. And it’s Jack. When the fuck did that happen?”

“Remember the Plague heist?” There’s a smirk in Ryan’s voice, and Jack knows why. That was some good sex. Great, even, considering it was their first time. Jack’s never bragged about her evening before, it would have brought up too many questions, but in the future she absolutely will. She’s heard a lifetime’s worth of Geoff’s marital antics. About time she returned the favour.

“That fucking long ago?” Michael screeches.

“What the fuck!” Jeremy shouts.

Jack doesn’t feel one ounce of remorse for not revealing her relationship. Not just because she respects Ryan’s full hearted belief in privacy, although that’s certainly true. There are other reasons for the crew to have been kept in the dark. “If we said anything you’d want to meet Mica. I present as a woman to Mica. I don’t need you all spoiling that.”

“I don’t care if you hide her away forever. Not our fuckin’ business,” Geoff declares, flinging his booze holding hand out as he speaks. Not to worry about the alcohol though, he’s already drunk it past where it would slosh out from emphatic gestures. “Also, as a side note, present with us too. No reason not to.”

“Unless you don’t want to?” Michael offers.

“But for shit’s sake woman,” Geoff talks loudly over Michael, “let us supply you with weaponry until you get out of the red.”

“I don’t like being in people’s debt.” Not to mention that she actually did do a decent amount of damage with her baseball bat. Jack doesn’t _need_ thirteen guns and a thousand bullets. She can make due until the next huge heist drops them all in five zero shares of the total haul.

“We’re a crew, moron. No fuckin’ debt here.”

Before she can argue that statement, point out that for all their friendships they still have separate bank accounts and their own contingency plans and safe houses, Gavin’s launching himself. He snags Jeremy on the way, and Jack finds herself in a three-way hug. Geoff grumbles before slinging himself against her back. Michael calls them all retards, but lets Gavin reel him in too. Jack’s tall enough to see over the younger men ensnaring her, and she makes eye contact with Ryan, still a safe few feet away. She knows he won’t join the huddle, he’s been gut stabbed by supposed friends in the past, but he’s happy for her. She’s happy for herself too. Even if the anesthetic goes wrong and she dies on the table, she’s gotten to have this.


End file.
